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Week in Review: Junshi Signs $1.1 Billion Deal for US-Canada Rights to PD-1
Deals and Financings
Shanghai Junshi Bio (HK: 1877; SHA: 688180) out-licensed US-Canada rights for its anti-PD-1 antibody to Coherus Bio in an agreement worth up to $1.1 billion (see story). Coherus will pay $150 million upfront. Coherus also received options for an anti-TIGIT antibody and a next-gen engineered IL-2 cytokine, as well as first negotiation rights for two early-stage checkpoint inhibitor antibodies. Junshi's Tuoyi (toripalimab) is the first China-developed anti-PD-1 antibody approved in
Beijing InnoCare (HK: 09969) announced it raised $407 million in private placements with two Hillhouse Capital subsidiaries and Vivo Opportunity Fund (see story). The new shares represent 14% of InnoCare's outstanding shares post-investment, valuing the company at $2.9 billion. The Hillhouse affiliates bought 90% of the new shares. InnoCure is developing 10 candidates aimed at malignant tumors and autoimmune diseases with trials under way in
Syapse, a
Nantong Lianya Pharma, a division of Novast, completed a $62 million funding that was led by Highlight Capital, with participation from Shiyu Investment (see story). The company has 40 US-approved difficult-to-make generic drugs including over 30 hormone products and nine oral controlled-release drugs. Lianya is applying for
Shanghai Junshi Bio (HK: 1877; SH: 688180) will make a $50 million strategic investment in Coherus BioSciences (NSDQ: CHRS), a
Sequoia Capital China and Illumina (NSDQ: ILMN) will partner to launch a genomic incubator in
COVID-19 Pandemic
Tianjin CanSino Biologics (HK: 6185; SHA: 688185) reported its AD5-nCOV vaccine met interim primary safety and efficacy endpoints without any serious adverse events (see story). CanSino said it expects to see unblinded interim results from the trial later this week. The Phase III clinical trial of Ad5-nCoV enrolled 40,000 volunteers of all ages in 78 clinical trial sites located in five countries. CanSino's candidate is delivered by an adeno-associated virus serotype 5 (AAV5) vector and was
Chengdu's Clover Biopharma announced plans to start a global Phase II/III efficacy trial of its S-Trimer COVID-19 vaccine together with a Dynavax (NSDQ: DVAX) adjuvant (see story). Previously, Clover was using a GSK adjuvant, but decided to switch based on "manufacturing considerations" for the GSK product. Also today, Clover published positive early results of the Clover-GSK combination in The Lancet. Clover's vaccine can be manufactured to produce hundreds of millions of doses and stored in a regular refrigerator, making it valuable for low-resource settings.
Trials and Approvals
Suzhou Innovent Biologics (HK: 01801) and its partner Eli Lilly (NYSE: LLY) announced
Beijing InnoCare (HK: 09969) was approved to start a China Phase III trial of its Bruton’s tyrosine kinase (BTK) inhibitor in combination with R-CHOP as a first-line treatment for mantle cell lymphoma (MCL) (see story). In late 2020, orelabrutinib was approved by
Shanghai I-Mab (NSDQ: IMAB) started
Kira Pharma, a global biotech developing complement-targeted therapies for immune-mediated diseases, dosed the first healthy volunteer in a Phase I trial of P014, its lead candidate (see story). P014 is a novel bi-functional biologic that is designed to block two separate rate-limiting steps in the complement activation cascade. The company plans to test P014 in several complement-mediated diseases. In late 2020, Kira closed a $53 million Series B+ financing. The company is headquartered in
Chengdu Kanghong Pharma (SHZ: 002773) announced conbercept was granted Special Protocol Assessments in the
Disclosure: none.
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